"The Prometheus project, originally started in 2344, was one of the most
debated, contreversial, and troublesome projects ever taken up by Starfleet.
The ship was first proposed at the end of the war with the Klingons, in particular,
the loss of the Enterprise C to the Romulans while it was defending the Klingons
at Narendra III. The design brief was for a "tactical recon" vessel capible of
sustaining an extremely high warp factor for extended periods of time. Over 100
different designs were sumbited.
However, as the final design was chosen, the project was shelved by Starfleet
pointing out the end of the war meant that the vessel was no longer needed. In
protest, 10 officers threatened to resign from their posts. Many of these officers
later were assigned to Intrepid Project. Their influence in the Intrepid Project is
apparent.
The project remained suspeneded until 2358, when Starfleet made a general
clean up of all "unused" starship designs. However, there was now a problem.
The Nebula Class project had already been assigned the name USS Prometheus
for use on one of their ships. Requests by the new Prometheus team to the
Nebula team were met with various pranks, including having the computer
replicate tapioca pudding whenever one of the Prometheus teammembers
requested an item from a replicator.
The project, now renamed to Nomad Class after what was going to be the
second vessel produced (later renamed to USS Arlington), continued under
mulitiple redesigns and rehashes. The best thinkers and designers from the
ASDB were pulled from their projects to work on the Nomad Project. This
angered many in Starfleet Command. They again suspended the project, citing
that no warships were needed - a lie because the end of the recent Cardassian
wars had left Starfleet depleted. 
The three keels that had been assembled for
USS Nomad/Prometheus, USS Arlington, and USS Kensington, were broken
up into pieces and shiped to various outposts.
In 2365, Starfleet again reopened the Nomad Project as part of the reaction to
the discovery of the Borg. However, when the keels were brought back to be
assembled, there was a minor problem. Something (or one) had severely
damaged all components of all three ships. A brilliant designer was able to come
up with a hasty regesign to use the existing parts - allow the ship to split into
three sections: lower, upper, and saucer sections. The redesign was quickly
approved, as it would not require any outside parts or supplies. He integrated a
unique weapon powering system, and called the splitting ability "multi-vector
assult mode". It has been rumored that he did not think that his ideas would
work.
Construction continued in secret up to 2373, when the Nebula Class USS
Prometheus was destroyed. The Nomad Class designers successfully petitioned
Starfleet Command to rename the project to Prometheus Class... again.
The ship launched in early 2374, but on its maiden voyage, it was hijakked by
Romulans, but quickly brought back under Starfleet control by the brilliant work
of two EMH programs."
